There’s good news for those who think the government has no right to spy on the communications of its citizens and co-opt private industry into expanding the state’s surveillance network: Bill C-30, the Conservative government’s lawful access legislation, appears to be dead in the water. But if the U.S. experience teaches us anything, it’s that […]

The modern Internet is a product of the Cold War: Following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. military built a decentralized computer network that could continue to operate in the event of a nuclear attack. Where previous networks relied on a central server to facilitate the transfer of information, what came to be known […]

Reaction to the Conservatives’ lawful access bill, which was tabled in the House on Tuesday, has been fierce — and the government appears to be getting the message. On Wednesday, it announced the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act would be sent to committee, where MPs will have the opportunity to make substantial changes. But […]

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ attempt to demonize opponents of his new Internet law — you’re either with the government, or with the “child pornographers,” he said on Monday — isn’t the first time he’s sought to demonize critics. In November, he said Liberals should “finally stop putting the rights of child pornographers and organized crime […]

For years, small-c conservatives have been arguing that the gun registry is a giant waste of money — not only because it went way over budget, but due to the fact that it serves to make criminals out of law abiding firearms owners. Meanwhile, those intent on committing crimes easily escape its grip. To their […]

I was disappointed to see my colleague Terence Corcoran advocating the idea that cyber-libertarians are actually collectivists in disguise and that Big Government regulations are needed to save free markets and innovation in the digital age (“The Internet’s collectivist blarney,” Financial Post, Jan. 28). Mr. Corcoran’s story goes like this: Google and a handful of […]

In a new book, excerpted below, former CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon explains how Beijing, and its loyal corporate minions, scrub ‘disharmonious’ material from the Chinese Web: In fall 2009, I sat in a large auditorium festooned with red banners and watched as Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, China’s dominant search engine, paraded onstage with executives […]

In a blog post on Thursday, the social-networking site Twitter announced it is implementing technology that will allow it “to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country.” Since Twitter has been used in recent years to organize important anti-government protests in countries such as Syria and Iran, many are rightly concerned that the […]